A PENSIONER who downloaded horrific images depicting babies being abused and young girls raped is facing a jail sentence.

Alan Kay, 70, was caught with more than 20,000 indecent pictures of children when police searched his home last year – the second time in a matter of years he had been caught with similar images.

Kay stored the pictures and movies on a laptop and it was found that he had also downloaded file sharing software which can be used to share indecent images of children with others.

Kay, of Stoneyhill Place, Musselburgh, collected more than 1,000 Class A images – the worst end of the spectrum – which featured girls as young as nine years old being raped.

His depraved collection also showed “newborn babies” being abused and young girls “tied up with ropes, tape and other ligatures”.

Edinburgh Sheriff Court was told that Kay was already on the sex offenders’ register when he committed the offence, as he had previously been jailed for 10 months for a similar offence in 2014.

The OAP pleaded guilty to possessing 20,032 indecent images and six movies of children at his home address between March 20 and June 24 last year during his appearance in the dock at the Capital’s sheriff court.

Fiscal depute Aidan Higgins told the court that police received intelligence that Kay was downloading the abuse pictures and films and turned up at his home with a search warrant on June 24 last year.

Mr Higgins said: “Officers attended and explained the matter to the accused. They searched the property and seized pieces of computer equipment which were analysed and they recovered indecent images of children on a laptop.

“The images were found on the laptop and had been downloaded by the accused.”

Mr Higgins told the court last Thursday that the total amount of images reached 20,032, with 1,217 classified as the most serious Class A.

Kay, a retired maintenance engineer, also had six movies – four at category A – on his laptop, as well as file sharing software.

The fiscal said that the file names that Kay had stored the pictures under included “PTHC – pre teen hardcore”, “nine-year-old girl – hard porn” and “five-year-old girl – PTHC”.

Mr Higgins added: “There were a wide range of specific ages between six and 15 years of age in a number of the files.

“The images, both still and moving, mainly feature pre-pubescent female children. The Category B and C images were mostly nude or semi-nude girls involved in sexual posing or non-penetrative sexual activity.

“The Category A images showed male and female children being. . . raped by adults.

“Some of the children involved were newborn babies and the movies featured young girls tied up with ropes, tape or other ligatures.”

Sheriff Alistair Noble acknowledged that Kay was already on the sex offenders’ register and deferred full sentence to next month for reports and a risk assessment.

Kay was previously placed on the sex offenders’ register and jailed for 10 months at Haddington Sheriff Court in September 2014 after he was caught with hundreds of child abuse images at his home.